fearcutsdeeperthanswords | ❈ | 031

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[With all these people graduating lately and all her wardens gone off, Arya has been doing a lot of thinking. She's wormed her way into the CES - she always seems to find a way - and is sitting against Nymeria, using the direwolf as a pillow. She's wearing a modern looking zipper hoodie over her usual threadbare attire; the zipper is open, but the hood is up, and on its top are two fuzzy, gray wolf ears. There's dirt on her face when she clicks the feed on, in a swoop from her cheek to her jaw; on the other side she's managed to accumulate a couple scratches. She doesn't seem to notice either.]

There's no one left from Westeros, besides me. Tyrion's gone. Viserys used to be here; I don't think there are a lot who remember him. Jon Snow was here, too. But he left.

[They all left is what she doesn't say out loud. She scratches at her jaw, somehow missing the dirt.]

I've been here a long time, though. I checked - it's two years, now. [She doesn't pause; she's already let that sink in.] Your worlds are all different from mine. You treat people like babies till they're old; you call them kids until they're eighteen, twenty. In Westeros, and Essos, and all over in my world - a girl is grown when she's flowered. [She makes a face, because it's a dumb euphemism, but it's ingrained.] My brother was a king when he was fifteen. He wasn't a boy, he had a beard and led men and killed his enemies. [And he died.

She pauses for a moment, looking up as a shadow passes over her, presumably a cloud.]

When I was littler, I wanted to know if I could build castles, or be a High Septon, or be a councilor to a king. He said I could marry a king, and my sons could be Septons and builders and knights and lords. Well I'm not getting married, and I'm not having sons, not ever.

Is that what it's like in your worlds, too? I don't mean, do they say no and you do it anyway, that's not any different. Are girls allowed to be rulers and builders and fighters where you all are from?

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[She nods and lets go of the glass blade, pulling the other out of her sleeve and flipping it deftly so the hilt sits in her palm. Ten she Pulls lightly at the zipper, then the metal blade.]

Take them off. Just the dagger.

[The pull makes her hand tighten around Needle's hilt, and there's just a second of alarm - it was taken once, she'll never let it be taken again - but it stops, and she nods. Tugging the hoodie off, arms inside out, she tosses it down and then lays Needle on top of it. Nymeria sniffs at it idly, and Arya catches her big head between her hands, meeting her eyes for a moment. A second later, Nymeria runs off; she'll watch from the tree line for a while, unless she scents prey.

Metal gone, Arya turns to Vin, shifting the dagger between her hands before settling it in her left.]

[Vin nods.]

It's not safe to wear metal in my world. The people who are like me can use it, like I just did, to move you to their will. And there are others like me here.

[This is not how Ham would have taught Arya, she knows. He would have spoken to her about brighter things first; he would have posed theoretical questions; he would have treated her with a little care, the way he treated Vin. But she knows that Arya is stronger than most care to acknowledge. She isn't a child. She is her own tool.]

So fight me with tooth and claw.

[This time she gives that as a verbal warning before she moves - before she flies, really, burning pewter for grace if no strength. She strikes once, intending to test and not damage much, though if the blow cuts Arya a little she won't be that bothered. She wants to see how the girl handles a dagger, if she moves as though she's holding a sword.]

[It's not the same as using Needle, but that's what she knows. She turns sideface, making herself a smaller target, holds the dagger firmly but loosely; it's a part of her arm. She remembers Syrio's lessons best of all her teachers.

When the strike comes, she moves, dances like he was teaching her, like she saw the bravos in the canals do; she sweeps her arm up, and blocks.

Fight me sounds like Syrio's strike me, so she doesn't stay still, she pushes in, stepping forward and trying to push Vin back with her free hand and the blocking knife.]

[It is a dance, and she moves like a dancer, feet barely touching the ground to propel her forward. Her movements are light but loud, all the quiet stillness of her ordinary demeanor shattered in the joy of movement, of power, of understanding (which is not crucial, but helps - she knows it helps, thinks Arya is seeking it).]

[The potential for lethality is obvious in every step, every breath. Her eyes are bright as she dodges - though not by much. It makes her smile.]

Hold it closer.

[Her only piece of advice. The technique needs tweaking, not much else. Now she feints, steps left and right and around and forward, blade aimed for Arya's cheek.]

[She adjusts; this isn't Needle, it's a shorter reach, and she shouldn't be afraid to get in close. She's not afraid of anything. The feint is her favorite lesson, though, one of Syrio's earliest: she must not only look with her eyes, but see.

Arya's sloppy; her training did not last and has been sparse and graceless since. But she remembers the dancing that she loved, and she ducks under Vin's blade, stepping wide and almost stumbling, but putting herself out of immediate danger. Her eyes are wide and her pulse is going, but there's a smile on her face.

Closer.

She moves in again, thrusts like a sword for Vin's belly.]

[Vin twists, dodges. But not quite enough.]

[This is, of course, deliberate. The bruise Stark left her is long since faded, but just as that didn't faze her, so the prospect of a knife in her gut is nothing at all. Pain isn't something she fears anymore. It's a weapon Camon had over her, but Camon is dead, dead, dead, and now - pain is a roadblock. An inconvenience. Not an enemy.]

[So she twists enough that the dagger, when it hits her, only cuts skin and the barest hint of muscle. It bleeds, and it hurts, but she's had worse - much (Marsh, Zane, Ruin) - and pewter keeps her going so that, while Arya's blade is pulling away from her skin, she can whip snake-quick, grab her wrist, and twist her around, arm around her neck, blade to her jugular.]

[Her voice is quiet; she's completely still again, though wary.]

Not everyone fears death.

Again?

[Arya's eyes widen as the blade sinks in. She can feel it, the moment glass parts skin; it's not a new feeling, and she's not afraid of it, not afraid of hurting. She's afraid of healing, because she doesn't know how. There's a heartbeat where she considers fleeing, slipping into Nymeria's skin and disappearing, but she's no craven.

She's no craven.

She's practically still when Vin reacts, and suddenly there's a knife to her throat and her arm is twisting. She drops her knife, right hand automatically reaching up for Vin's wrist, and she's half shifted her weight to stomp on a foot when the woman speaks again. She's not in danger here. It's just practice.

What do we say to the god of death?]

Not today, [she whispers, but it's not an answer to the question. She nods instead, careful of the glass edge, and tilts her head to try and get a look at Vin.]

Doesn't it hurt?

[That look and the fact that she stays, more than anything, makes Vin proud of her. It shocks her to her core, the strength of that pride. It's foreign and strange.]

Not today.

[Barely a murmur, barely audible, and then she's stepping away, light on her toes. She touches the wound in her belly with her free hand, inspects the blood that comes away on it. The shirt is torn. She'll need to change before Kelsier sees.]

It hurts. But I heal quick. Besides, there are worse pains.

[Loss. Loneliness. Helplessness.]

[She puts her head on one side and smiles.]

You wouldn't let it slow you down either, would you?

[She rubs at her throat out of habit, eyes on Vin's bloody fingers. She's been bloody near to the elbow before; blood doesn't frighten her.]

No, [Arya says slowly, and stoops to pick up her knife quickly, turning sideface again. She frowns, pauses and bites her lip.]

...I might. But I don't want to. [And that's the point of all of this, really; teach me.]

[It's painfully honest, dangerously so. It's a risk for Arya to take, revealing her own weakness, and Vin knows it. She knows, too, that revealing weakness like that hurts and terrifies. Watching Arya in profile, she bows her head slightly, thinking.]

[What would Kelsier say?]

If you're afraid of pain . . .

[She closes her eyes, despite the close presence of someone who is armed and so clearly dangerous - closes them and imagines Kelsier bloodied and broken. Remembers Elend calling for her, frightened and alone, carrying on by himself, though he shouldn't have had to.]

If you're afraid of pain, imagine your pack in pain. And push through it. You can put the pain away and feel it later, if you have something important enough to fight for.

[Her eyes close and Arya knows if they were really fighting, she'd take this opportunity. A girl has no honor; a girl could hamstring and then kill her. But Arya doesn't want to kill her, she wants to learn from her.

And pain is a good teacher. Syrio says that every hurt is a lesson. Said. Her hand tightens on the hilt of her knife, and she remembers how Lommy got killed, how they were attached by Amory Lorch's men, how the Goat terrified them all. She thinks of Gendry and how he was so stupidly bullheaded, how he always looked like thinking hurt him; she thinks of Hot Pie, deciding to leave her; of Jesse and Lark and Chris and how she'd rip out the throat of anyone who hurt them, if only they let her.

She nods. She has important things to fight for.]

I can do that.

[Honor, Vin thinks, is overrated - a luxury, a thing of privilege which she has only recently had the opportunity to see in action as an equal. It didn't speak much to her. If someone is to hurt her or hers, she'll destroy them. And maybe that's wrong, but it's been what's necessary.]

[She doesn't kill indiscriminately. She kills precisely, not because she's upset but because she has people and places and things to protect. Or - did.]

[Vin opens her eyes and half-smiles at Arya, a fleeting expression that is neither gentle nor kind.]

Are they good to you? Your pack.

[Maybe a question with an obvious answer, but she so rarely believes in the inherent goodness in people. Sometimes good people are found, like gems in silt, in the crevices of cave walls - but overall, people will do such ugly things. Beat their baby sisters to keep them quiet. Arya shouldn't be treated that way.]

[It's the kind of smile Arya can appreciate, the sort that tells a lot but never enough. No lady's smirk for her, just promise. There's a lot of promise in a smile. Arya turns her knife, stands sideface again, and lifts it, ignoring the blood on the glass blade.]

Yes. [It's mostly true; she's afraid, always, that they will leave her like so many others have. She still tells herself that she doesn't need them, that she'll be okay on her own, and that's true - she would be all right on her own.

She just doesn't want to be, anymore. ]

They're good. And I'm good to them. [They need me, is what she doesn't say out loud; she doesn't let herself think, and I need them.]

[Vin can read between the lines. She knows well enough what it looks like when someone needs something they feel they shouldn't need - when they need other people, though that's not usually safe. She knows this from the inside.]

[Again, she's surprised at how pleased she is to hear this - or see it in Arya's eyes and her body language. It's very important. She'd be nothing without her crew. She'd be a ghost, the powerless kind. A wisp on the wind.]

Good.

Let's carry on, then. Fight me.

[Arya shifts her grip, eyes Vin for a long moment, and nods. Yes; this is the kind of teaching she understands. The kind that teaches with pain, but not too much, the kind that gives real lessons that apply to more than just fighting. She waits, still as a statue, then darts forward again.]

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